![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/recycling-empty-cans-and-bottles.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
Unsurprisingly, warmer months are the best times to find dozens of empty beer, soda and other drink containers in Vancouver. (Ben Nelms\/CBC)<\/p>\nGrant Kilian likes to move fast between the tall blue recycling bins he sorts through, in Vancouver’s West End alleys.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Time, but more accurately, cans are money here. The faster you can fill a bag, the faster you can get paid at the return depot. A big garbage bag full of beer cans, some of which he says he crushes, at 10 cents a pop, could earn Kilian about $30 in tax-free cash.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As he puts it, it’s just a bit of extra money for food, bills or cigarettes when everything feels tight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I don’t do crime or steal, so it’s just an honest way of making some extra money, and I’m pretty good at it. I can make $50-$60 in a couple of hours”, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, warmer months are the best times to find dozens of empty beer, soda and other drink containers in Vancouver. (Ben Nelms\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Kilian is a “binner.”\u00a0It’s a word you won’t find in most dictionaries, but it bluntly describes “a person who collects redeemable containers and other things from bins to sustain their livelihood and to divert waste from landfills,”\u00a0according to the definition at the Binners Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n The group, which advocates for binners in B.C., says there are\u00a0more people than ever collecting things from trash cans for money in Vancouver, especially compared to past summers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, warmer months are the best times to find dozens of empty beer, soda and other drink containers in the city. Making $200 to $300 a night in the summer is possible, says Kilian.\u00a0<\/p>\n WATCH | Binners sort through trash to make money:\u00a0<\/strong> High cost of living has more people collecting cans for cash<\/p>\n Canada\u2019s high cost of living and widening income gap have people in downtown Vancouver increasingly turning to collecting cans and bottles to turn in for cash at recycling centres.<\/p>\n Even a tenth of that, which is more of an average day’s work, seems to be enough to entice many newcomers to binning, says Francis Taban, who works at the Binners Project and has been a binner himself for 12 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n “There’s more than you can think of,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It used to be a few guys who had maybe had a drug addiction\u00a0or maybe [were] alcoholic. Now, it becomes more people losing jobs, less income, cost of living going up.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The rising expenses of everyday life is a reality\u00a0most Canadians feel all the time, but being a low-income earner\u00a0is especially difficult right now, says Lars Osberg, a professor of economics at Dalhousie University\u00a0in Halifax.\u00a0<\/p>\n People who earn less are more susceptible to job loss during economic downturns. They’re more likely to experience wage stagnation or outright lose their jobs, says Osberg.<\/p>\n “We have a rise in poverty and a rise in inequality,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Numbers from Statistics Canada back all that up, too.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The gap between the haves and have-nots in Canada has officially never been wider.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the first quarter of 2025, the gap between Canada’s highest and lowest income households\u00a0reached a record high<\/a>. The same report underscored how the lowest-income households, defined as the bottom 20 per cent\u00a0of the income distribution range, had the weakest growth in their wages compared to a year earlier.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754849410_371_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Francis](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/binners-project.JPG\")
Binning is a low-barrier way for people to make some extra cash, and according to Francis Taban, ‘afford a little bit of lifestyle.’ (Maggie MacPherson\/CBC)<\/p>\n
![\"East](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/dtes.jpg\")
The gap between the haves and have-nots in Canada has officially never been wider, according to numbers from Statistics Canada. (Ben Nelms\/CBC)<\/p>\n